GMO – another attack of the big companies

fot. kstiffler/sxc.hu

Crowds on the Polish streets and the attacks of Anonymous were the reason for the Polish government to find a scapegoat who will be responsible for the actions which took effect in signing an unfortunate agreement.

However, it seems to be a gimmicky activity which aims to save the government and the Prime Minister’s reputation after ACTA has been already signed.

In spite of the fact that ACTA was broadly discussed much earlier, the Polish government was withholding the moment of drawing up the agreement till the last minute. Even though the internauts’ reaction was more than unexpected, the government did nothing to speak with the basic segment of this treaty – the Internet users.

Nevertheless, we need to take a wider look on the ACTA agreement. As we already know, it was elaborated in secret in participation of the big concerns which will probably earn the most on it.

We need to note that it doesn’t mean that only phonographic and movie companies will have the biggest benefits. It actually turns out that this treaty can have something in common with...GMO.

Three words about GMO

Let’s start with a definition of GMO - the Genetically Modified Organisms are living organisms whose genetic material was modified by genetic engineering methods. We can have modified bacteria or plants. Today, when we speak about the GMO we rather think about artificially altered plants whose genetic code is protected by the patent rights belonging to some big biotechnological concerns.

The GMO issue is very controversial. Its followers claim that it gives bigger crops and the plants remain fresh for a long time. Its opponents say that the influence on human body and local ecosystems wasn’t precisely investigated (it is connected with the process of absorption by the genetically modified plants).

What thing can link ACTA and GMO?

People interested in GMO know that the GMO seeds are sold and cropped on license of rights – it means that every farmer must pay a relevant amount of money to the company which created a particular type of tillage. This obvious thing can be although very confusing.

Let’s take the Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser as an example. He was accused by the biotechnological concern Mosanto of illegal cropping of genetically modified colza. Schmeiser stated that the GMO appeared on his field by coincidence – it was probably a self-sown plant which came from the neighbor field with genetically modified colza. The judge wasn’t satisfied with those arguments – hence, the farmer was forced to pay the patent fee to Mosanto. Apparently Schmeiser should have done everything in order to avoid self sowing or to weed those GMO plants.

The problem is serious because thanks to ACTA which protects the patent rights and after introducing the GMO tillage the big corporations will be able to sue those people who do not even know that their tillage was pollinated by GMO.

Let us imagine a situation after signing ACTA and introducing the GMO tillage – there’s a farmer in a small village who starts to crop genetically modified plants, buys seeds, pays the patent fees and pollinates his field. After some time the pollen is spread by the wind, bees or other animals which pollinate the crops of another farmer having an ecological tillage on his field. Not only he looses the ecological status of his tillage but also he is subject to a potential visit of a biotechnological concern’s representative wanting him to pay the fee for growing GMO. Even if our farmer doesn’t want to grow the GMO and to make the biotechnological concern’s wallet bigger – he has no choice.

ACTA with its vague content and terms can treat the GMO patens as the same subject of copyrights as the Internet files. What is more, every farmer can be a potential criminal pursued by an international institution called up after the treaty enters into force. Interesting concurrence: an international institution pursuing the violation of copyrights and international corporations being the owner of the license for crops. Coincidence?

On the 8th of February the social consultations will be held in the Presidential Palace. There will be 6 followers of GMO and only 3 of its opponents – the supporters of common sense and healthy food. It is possible that it will cause the same scandal as ACTA. Poland will become a rubbish bin full of genetically modified food whose real usefulness is hard to find by an every-day man. Our shops are full of powder products which increase the financial benefits of producers and businessmen as well as the number of allergies and patients financed by the National Health Fund.

Who will take advantage of the genetically modified food? Would it be a step towards the elimination of the ecological agriculture, the fall of the small and medium enterprises and the disappearance of our precious ecological brand?

Is ACTA really connected with GMO? I encourage the lawyers to analyze this question and the internauts to take a wider look on this problem till it’s too late.

I believe that the Internet society can become a barometer of unconsidered politics where people’s interest is no more a fundamental value.

Free Internet – has it ever existed?

The fact that government suddenly revealed its plans to sign the controversial agreement ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) caused a real storm on the Internet; also many governmental websites became a target for the group of Anonymous.

Only a few weeks ago nobody has heard about this document. In Poland the first information was given by the “Dziennik Internautów” in 2009 – it was about a mysterious document being secretly prepared. I wrote about it on “Kod Władzy” blog when eight countries signed this document often ignoring the democratic procedures.

In spite of publicity around the Anonymous, their attacks are more spectacular than dangerous – they just try to attract attention to this controversial act. The declarations of publishing the politicians’ secret documents seem to be more serious. However, we can assume that the Anonymous are totally serious in their ideas. It is mainly because they have already proved their efficacy in hacking into servers of different companies and stealing data from them. This was the case of PayPal, VISA, Mastercard and Stratfor where the hackers stole e-mail addresses and credit cards numbers.

It is possible that they are not lying.

Although the controversies about this agreement caused uproar in Poland, it is not the first step towards limiting the “freedom on the Internet”. As a matter of fact, the Web has been limited since a long time ago.

The limits can concern many spheres and they also depend on cultural or religious background, on the political system or history. For example, the broadly discussed Chinese Internet; according to the OpenNet Initiative’s reports, China does not comply with the criteria in three main areas: political, social and security area.

Censorship in North Korea is not surprising, but what about imposing limits by Seoul? As we can see, also the South Korea has put some appropriate restrictions by preventing people to enter the websites which praise their southern neighbor.

The situation in the Middle East is also different. Apart from the political reasons that make entering on the websites of the Muslim Brotherhood impossible, the religious reasons are also important. They are visible in e.g. blocking the porn websites, but it is not the end of such actions. The government of Saudi Arabia makes efforts in order to prevent the internauts to come across the websites informing how to become a Christian.

Free Europe?

Maybe the examples of some Asian authoritarian countries are not astonishing, but when we speak about the European Union, which is generally considered as liberal, such limits can be a surprise for the reader. The limits concern the content appearing under a general category which is “the speech of hatred” persecuting religious and ethnical minorities. For example in France and Germany the government fights against websites promoting Nazism.

Apart from the mentioned content, the question of copyrights is also significant – it was a reason for the big debate on ACTA. We should know that this subject has been broadly discussed by European countries since a long time ago; the new agreement is only an international aspect of this discussion. Let us take France as an example. According to the latest edition of the “Internet Enemies” report (published since 2006 and edited by the organization “Reporters without borders”) this country was found in the category “Under Surveillance” after when the government introduced a new law aiming to “civilize the Internet”.

Till now, as the Reporters without borders claim, France is the only country which violates freedom on the Internet in such way that it needs to be put in their report.

Let’s return to the copyrights. The main reason why governments are trying to create new regulations is the fact that internauts can freely copy data from the Internet. People who rule the countries will be certainly interested in some publications such as the Oxford Internet Institute’s report from 2011 which shows that technological progress won’t make the freedom of speech bigger – it will rather enable the government and the police to easily control the Web. In April 2011, “The Telegraph” informed that the EU wanted to introduce

a European “firewall” which won’t be designed to protect the Internet from the attacks from outside but in order to enable blocking the servers located outside the EU. This idea wasn’t put into practice, but who knows when the politics will think about it again.

Other regulations concerning copyrights caused a real storm in the EU – the “Pirates Movement” has come into being as a result of growing popularity of the Pirates Party in Sweden. They want to abolish the existing limits concerning copyrights; they are also against the general European division into right and left.

What about Poland?

In spite of the wave of protests against ACTA, the document itself and comments about it are worth seeing. According to Tymoteusz Barański from the Republican Foundation, the Polish law gives more powers than ACTA. This information is not surprising considering the fact that the European Union’s report from 2011 showed that the Polish people are the most invigilated society in EU.

On the other hand, one of the most controversial things about ACTA is the fact that it contains many basic and general concepts. What is more, ACTA seems to be a document written from the perspective of a particular group of people. As Barański says: “ACTA is mainly focused on protecting those who have the intellectual property rights and it doesn’t determine the rules of using the protected content by every-day users.

As we can see, we cannot say that the freedom on the Internet has always existed. However, many newly introduced laws and regulations will enlarge the number of limits. Even when such commentators as Anthony Wile from the “Daily Bell” say that it is the beginning of war for freedom on the Internet, we need to remember that its freedom has been finished a long time ago.

War games – year 2011

It the end of January it will be a year since the first post on "Code of Power" blog. From that moment on many things have happened and the world have encountered many changes, even if we don’t see it in every day life. All the comments and quotations were about to constantly follow these changes. Did it work? It’s you who rate it every day. 

What has happened this year? Generally speaking we can mention: 

1) World war games 

2) Technological war 

3) Crisis – more or less stimulated by economic or political influence centres 

If we take the world as a big board game, where players are setting their figures, we can say that the year 2011 was an extraordinary intensive period when the world biggest powers played very actively. 

Arabic revolution 

The year 2011 was the year of protests; the TIME magazine put a protesting man on its cover with reason saying that it is as a man of the year. All this has already started in February when the protests in North Africa were growing larger and larger. The presidents of Tunisia and Egypt resigned, but Libya’s leader – Muammar Gaddafi didn’t give up and declared that he would fight till the end. The rebels who fought against Gaddafi were supported by the West: France, Italy, Great Britain and USA. After a few long months the Libya’s capital Tripoli went down, then the Gaddafi’s home town Sirte was seized. The dictator was captured and killed. The photos of a young man holding a gun were famous worldwide – he killed the dictator and this gun became his trophy. The fall of the Libyan dictator contributed to the reinforcement of radical Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. In only few months the environments near Europe became strong enough to threaten many Mediterranean countries in case of any serious conflict. 

However, the “Arabic spring” wasn’t the same in every country. The similar protests in Syria were brutally quelled by the president Bashir al Assad – then the civil war burst out. In contrast to Libya, the country of Syria was supported by Russia. It didn’t agree for the interventions of the West and what is more, it provides arming for the Assad’s government. 

American spies 

The fact that the United States retreated their army from Iraq doesn’t mean that we can feel safe. Some say that a sudden attack on Iran is about to begin. This country situated near Iraq and Afghanistan plays a significant role in the region, whereas its president plays on American and European elite’s nerves. Apart from the American and Israel’s protests against the Persian declarations to build a nuclear power plant, there are also many outrages on Iranian scientists and nuclear objects – all that represents a real sabotage. 

As for Iran, the one of the most popular cases concerned the ultra modern spy drone Sentinel which was to be taken over by Teheran; also, the photos of the special drone were published on the Internet. This can serve as an example of a landmark in the use of modern equipment in technological war although the USA claims that the loss of the special drone was coincidental. 

In 2011 many interesting things have happened as far as the technology is concerned. Apart from the special drone which has given the access to the ultra modern and the cheapest technologies, we have the Teheran’s authorities which won out in propaganda by showing that they are able to break into the navigation systems and take control over the remote appliances. The more interesting thing is that shortly after the taking over the Sentinel, the American drone Reaper crashed in Seychelles. It happened just a few days after the China’s declaration of the opening of the first military base situated exactly on this archipelago. A bit earlier in Nevada there was a Trojan attack on the drone control center system which paralyzed the base’s activity for few hours. Is this a coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe not? 

Cyberspace invasion 

The year 2011 is a specific period when the technological war is waged rather in cyberspace than in a real world. A mysterious group of hackers called “Anonymous” plays an interesting role in this phenomenon. This ephemeral organization was famous of its spectacular attack on some governmental and personal websites. What is more, many people want to join “Anonymous” declaring the attack and destruction of Facebook or stealing some data from STRATFOR. 

The huge wave of protests that happened all over the world took their beginning from the “Occupy Wall Street” movement; they also took the Guy Fawkes figure – the symbol of the “Anonymous”. However, this growing activity of the “hacktivists” is more spectacular than efficient. In many countries the censorship, such as the controversial project ACTA, is becoming more and more popular under the pretext of fighting against hackers, terrorism, piracy and child pornography. It is not the only attempt which arouses anxiety. Year after year there are more and more data about us accessible on the Internet – huge concerns as Google or Facebook are accused of violating the users’ privacy or even of giving those data to the third parties. We also have a growing number of ubiquitous tappings, bugs, cameras and transmitters in our telephones. Nobody really knows how much the Big Brother sees and knows about us. 

Crisis – how much truth how much interests?

In 2011 we saw the third fundamental threat. The crisis, which erupted with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, has – after a brief period of stability – came back with even bigger momentum. The wave of unemployment and poverty that struck the United States was larger than anything seen in the past decades. In Europe the economies of EU counties have been weakened by the crisis in the euro area, which additionally led to the political unrests that cast many shadows on the future of the European Union in her present form. Greek, Spanish and Italian problems are not new discoveries, and even though they have been debated many times in the past 3 years only now they became the dominant issue, the issue that might change the European Union herself. We do not know whether the EU survives the year 2012. Some experts speak of necessary reforms and want to deepen the European integration, while others say we should abandon it for good. Politicians spread fear of next big war in Europe, the protests still go on the streets of Athens, cars are being burnt in many French cities. The crisis became an excuse for politicians to get to national financial reserves in the name of rescuing the people. But is it really about the people?

The atomic tragedy

Whatever direction will the 2012 take, we must remember that at the same time last year no one was able to predict the enormous tsunami that hit and ruined the shores of Japan on March 11th. This tragedy made people all over the world realize how much technology matters when confronted with the natural forces. Forces, that are so difficult to pacify, not even speaking of controlling them.

No one was able to predict the disaster in Fukushima and – reportedly – no one was able to predict the death of Bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi. It seemed impossible that at the end of 2011 new alliances will begin to be formed among Asian states. The destruction of Facebook announced by Anonymous did not happen. Sheik Nazim’s prophecies about the Great War at the beginning of the month Muharram did not fulfill.

How will 2012 be? Some say it will bring solutions to all global problems, including a complete destruction of our whole civilization. Will it happen? Similarly to the previously mentioned cases, one thing is certain. Someone will make a lot of money out of it. He surely will have a lot of time in 2013 to spend it all.

The shocking world

Our world – what’s it like? Is it like heaven in the Bible? Or maybe like Hell? One thing is for sure: the fact of Adam and Eva’s exile from paradise is a innocent deed in comparison to what people did to each other for the next thousands of years. What God is preparing for them now?

“Gazeta Wyborcza” alarms that our government, among other new rights, wants to provide police and other services with the information about our bank and brokerage accounts without any approval from the court. The project is quickly and silently accepted by the parliament. The Ministry of Interior and Administration admits that there were some new rights added to the regulations treating EU decisions on cooperation in fighting crime. Adam Rapacki – the vice-minister of Interior claimed that if the project is controversial, they are willing to resign from those rights which are not necessary to execute EU decisions.

Since there’s a possibility to see how much money I have and where do I get them from – then maybe one will know what I’m thinking about? What else do we need do control our emotions?

The Immersive Labs company is working on new technology which enables reading essential data about a person watching a commercial. The Singularity Hub service says that a special scanner put into the billboard’s screen will be able to read basic demographic characteristics of the watcher (age, sex, race) and adjust the content to his/her profile in a split second.

Intelligent billboards have already appeared in the science-fiction film: “Minority Report”. However, the authors of this device claim that it won’t read the exact identity of the passer-by; it will only recognize his age or sex. This innovative appliance is created in order to make commercials more accessible to customers.

Since we have mastered the influence on emotions, let’s create something that enables to control our behavior.

As presented in the New York Times, the American intelligent services are working on system which will be able to collect all the data coming from social networks available on the Internet.

Huge amounts of data will be used by scientists in order to create a big “store” where all the information will be processed. Thus, for the firs time in history, we will be able to make precise maps of human behavior. This kind of maps can be used to predict social and economical breakdowns, political crises and revolutions.

Going further, let’s present the information from “Dziennik Internautów” (Net surfers’ Journal) about another documents created to control the Internet.

Recently, eight countries along with USA have signed a controversial agreement “ACTA” concerning fake products and piracy in the web. This international rapport allows all countries in ACTA to introduce strict regulations on intellectual property protection. The controversial thing is e.g. the fact that the democratic procedures like the consent of American Senate were omitted.

At the same time, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being elaborated. As presented in some leaked information, TPP wants to introduce compensations for the owners of copyrights. The compensation will take into account the retail price of products and the responsibility of Internet Service Providers (ISP) which largely exceeds American standards. According to www.di.com.pl webpage, some legal encouragements for ISP will be introduced: they are to prevent the non-authorized storage and transmission of materials protected by the copyright law.

As we can see, it is never enough to have plenty of methods of security protecting a citizen from another citizen. After all, we should feel safe being just one step from heaven.

As the Daily Beast service claims, the armament companies treating military contracts for American army are looking for some new markets because their budget has been cut.

Companies producing drones, radars and sensors want to sell their technology (reserved only for the army till now) to border guard and police.

A secret IBISS (Integrated Building Interior Surveillance System) will be also accessible: this technology enables people to see through the walls. Its producer – the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) was not allowed to say anything about his product. Yet, IBISS has appeared in their offer as a device which improves police’s and firemen’s operations.

None of the methods of protecting the citizen’s security can be denied. Can’t they? According to The Telegraph, the Brazilian police will be soon equipped with special glasses able to recognize faces.

While preparing the football World Cup 2014 in Brazil, the Ministry of Interior wants to provide Brazilian police with glasses having special cameras. These cameras will be able to scan almost 400 faces in a second and then send them to a special computer archive with a 13 million photos capacity. Thanks to a special system of biometrical data analysis, the computer will analyze 46 000 of points on the face and will immediately inform about the resemblance with a wanted person.

Leandro Pavani Agostini, person responsible for the police in São Paulo claims that “this method is much more discreet because you don’t have to interrogate or ask for the documents. The computer does it.”

Still, we cannot complain: the technical development should be helpful. Is that so?

The scientists from USA, China and Singapore have elaborated new, unusual technology which combines biology and engineering. It can help in transferring the medical information and computer signal or even be used in spy technology. The service breitbart.com informs us about the so called Epidermal Electronic System (EES). This crucial device is a ultrathin chip resembling a tattoo and is placed on the skin.

The device looking like an adhesive plaster can help in heart disease, brain and muscle tissues monitoring and placed in the patient’s throat it can be helpful in problems with voice. According to the researchers, apart from the normal treatment, the device will be very helpful in treating patients with larynx problems.

This device is thinner than a hair, ultra light and uses a minimal amount of solar energy. Its advantage is that we don’t need some special glue or substance to attach it to our skin.

Data coming from this phenomenal invention will undoubtedly stay in our doctor’s drawer. Seeing that everything about us is known, maybe we should approve the Darpa’s initiative. This agency, subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, wants to invite people from outside to work on new genetic projects. According to the “Wired” magazine, the newly employed engineers, computer scientists and designers are to create the “democratization” of operations on biologic components.

Darpa (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) plans to create a project leading to a great explosion of biologic innovations. There are also some projects to build a factory producing necessary biological organs. Human inventiveness is the only limit.

Since our representatives who rule the world are foreseeing and they emanate a social reliability, how surprised we are about the fact that, according to The-Dispatch.com service, the Japanese citizens, discouraged by the government’s attitude, decided to investigate the radiation level on their own. It turned out that only in Tokyo they came across nearly 20 places where the radiation exceeds the normal level.

One of the citizen researchers - Takeo Hayashida has discovered that near a sports field, where his son is playing baseball, the level of radiation is equally high to the one in the Chernobyl power station. The Japanese government belittles this problem claiming that the majority of radiated products were moved to another place and are not dangerous.

Is this true that a simple measurer is enough to keep the security? Maybe someday, we’ll get to know that all this is complicated by someone else.

Doctor Edgar Mitchell, the sixth person on the Moon during the Apollo program, has recently appeared in a British radio show. He stated that aliens exist and people in NASA know about it since many years. Nick Margerrison, the DJ from Kerrang!Radio couldn’t believe what he heard when Mitchell openly talked about the case in his talk-show on 22nd July 2008.

The prelate Corrado Balducci, a member of Vatican theological curia and pope’s informer had the same opinion – he appeared five times in national Italian television claiming that the extraterrestrial contact is an authentic phenomenon.

Balducci has delivered an alien analysis and said that the image of aliens is consistent with the Catholic Church’s theology. The prelate stressed that “aliens are NOT demonic, they are NOT here to psychically hurt us, but still the fact that we met an alien needs to be studied carefully.” Since the prelate Balducci is an expert of demonology and the Vatican’s counselor, and since the Church has historically demonized many phenomena which weren’t understood well, his statements about aliens and the Church are extraordinary in our history.

Will we know the truth? Actually there’s a small chance for us: according to Paul Krugman’s opinion expressed in CNN, one of the method for taking the economy out from the crisis is a mass plan of armaments caused by the UFO invasion.

The economical Nobel prize-winner (year 2008) claims that the NASA’s information about a possible contact with aliens is not coincidental. In his opinion, just as the II World War has ended the Big Crisis, the UFO invasion will force the humankind to a mass mobilization which will increase national expenses and improve the world’s economy.

If so, we don’t need to be afraid of anything behind the heaven’s door. Surrounded by care and monitored by doctors, we will improve our life standards preparing for a galactic war.